


Ad Mortem

by Randy_sensei



Category: For Honor (Video Game)
Genre: Contest Entry, One Shot, not all of it, the last 500 words only, the rest was made before i realized there was a word limit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:05:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14745911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randy_sensei/pseuds/Randy_sensei
Summary: His mind an unquenchable storm.





	Ad Mortem

_‘_ _Ad mortem_ _, inimicus.’_

 

Something you do not wish to hear on the opposite side.

Something that instills _fear_ , in men, women.

A Lawbringer is not lying when they say ‘pray you do not need us.’

 

*** * ***

 

The battle for Rosa Collis is one to be remembered.

Not for valor, no, for horror.

What happened none want to remember, and the very few that _do_ remember are not the same as they were.

In the middle of it all stood a stone, as most people thought of him as.

Marius, the Lawbringer, stood alone.

He wasn’t the only one of his kind under command of Belval. He was just the only one left.

*** * ***

 

Embers of a fire frolic in the gust of wind.

A Warden, dirty blonde hair and all, sat at the fire, polishing a sword, the silence sitting heavy on everyone’s shoulders.

The Warden sat among her subordinates. Some with their head in their hands, some staring past a hundred meters, some already asleep sitting up.

They’re the ones envied, not many can sleep after what happened.

The Warden sat her sword aside, picking up the near-ruined helmet placed at her heel. Running her fingers across the long, straight slash across the cheek area.

She then traces the same slash across her own cheek.

 

Her eyes close, her chest rises and falls.

 

“Belval has gone insane, she must have,” one of her officers barks out.

She huffs.

“This… _medusa_ , cannot go on like this! She is flinging us into our deaths! For what?! Her own personal glory?!”

Her head bows further, hoping to drown his voice out completely.

“Commander! You agree, do you not?!”

Her shoulders fall.

“Even if I did, what is it to any of us,” she mutters under her breath, and hears the unsure movement of her now standing officer.

 

“Don’t you plebeians understand?!”

She explodes, “Were expendable, and nothing more! Belval cares not for any of us. You either adapt or succumb.”

She takes steps backwards, her knees feeling weak, the exhaustion of battles already passed finally taking their toll.

“Were expendable,” she whispers, “just the dead walking, nothing more…”

Her officers sat stunned and silent, be it because of the same exhaustion or lack of words. She realizes then, there’s far less of them.

She doesn’t dare think of _their_ troops.

Or what’s left of them, anyways.

 

*** * ***

 

Marius walked to the iron barred door, standing only steps away.

His helmet off, his armor off, he couldn’t help but feel helpless. Helpless.

Helpless, like a child, almost.

He stood with his jaw clenched. The door dragged open, the piercing cheering wrong to the ear.

The sight of this, wrong to the eyes; the thought of this, wrong on the mind.

The art of battle is never commendable. What one does is never commendable.

What one sees is never enough to fit in the confines of a poem, to fit in the mind of a poet.

The burden would be far too much.

What was left of his commanders stood behind him, there to support him.

His mind a storm, unquenchable in it's thirst, immovable in it's force. Legs moving, sans sense.

Stray petals hit his shoulders, the fancy dress gambison of an unknown material straining his arms to a nearly unusable state.

When Marius approaches the stairs atop where his commander stood, his officers stand along the path previously taken, along the needlessly intricate carpeted path.

At that moment, at the bottom of the stairs, where he stands, he feels empty.

Without his shell, without his men, without what he is used to most, he feels empty.

The cheering crowd eliciting no emotion to him, even though they are all here to welcome home what they think is a hero.

They couldn’t be further from the truth.

He takes those steps one at a time, because it is all his mind can take. He never understood how one can feel wrong in their own skin, like they don’t belong.

 

Yet still, he walked.

No matter how slow.

 

Holden Cross, his commander and brother in arms, a fellow Lawbringer, stands, his eyes mirroring Marius’ in exhaustion and lingering, repressed paranoia.

They shake hands slowly, and Marius’ face grows older, his smile sadder by the second.

Holden breaks the silence, their hands still connected; “It's good to see you again, brother.”

Marius can only nod and smile.

Holden turns and an officer provides him something that escapes Marius’ vision. Marius kneels and bows his head.

A short lived pause goes by.

“For valor in battle. For honor in service. For acts of courage in the battle of Rosa Collis, I, Holden Cross, commend you.”

A ceremonial sword, uncharacteristic in Holden’s hands, is placed over your left, then right shoulder.

“There are not many things one would hope to commend with for something like that battle, but I may only try and try, with this.

“Stand, Lawbringer of the Iron Legion.”

 

So he does.

Placed in front of him, is an axe decorated like a rose.

Marius swallows, and his eyes shift from Holden to the axe.

His jaw clenched. His fingers touch the cold metal of the weapon.

In that moment, the crowd cheers, again. It feels even more wrong than it did before.

Marius found that impossible, yet here he stood, proven wrong.

His mind a storm, unquenchable still.


End file.
